Apocabigbang: Fic: Postremus Regum Britanniae; Merlin; R; Chapter 8
Chapter 7: The Once and Future
Chapter 8: Memory is a Tricky Thing
If Merlin had been expecting it (in which case it wouldn’t have needed to happen, but it was the thought that counted, after all) then he would have expected it to hit him like a truck, levelling his mind. He would have thought that he might have collapsed or had some sense of agony. Instead it was more like someone had just opened a door in his mind.
Suddenly he wasn’t just Merlin any more, he was Merlin, the wizard, the legend and Merlin the man. He had two identities that were one.
And it didn’t feel strange.
He just felt that it was right and almost as if it was normal.
He had been setting the crown on Arthur’s head when it happened. Merlin had looked down and Arthur had looked up at him and he had thought, quite normally: ‘he looks exactly like he did before’ which had led to thinking about last time and that there had been a last time.
Then the dragon had arrived and the two of them were scrambling and running and Merlin was trying to keep up with the million and one spells that were running through his brain.
He could feel his magic inside his skin and he had been able to feel it all his life, he just hadn’t realised what it was. It was humming now that Arthur was crowned.
Arthur was crowned.
It took him a moment to realise that, even without his memories, he had somehow done exactly what he needed to.
Magic was in everything, even though it had been forced out of the world and into the corners, the edges, over the boundaries, there was still magic running through the world and he could feel it.
He could feel the huge wounds and injuries that the eruption of the other side had caused. He could feel parts of the world screaming at him in pain. But he could feel something else as well: warmth, filtering across the globe as true on these few square metres of ground he stood on as it was everywhere else. Arthur had been crowned and the earth could feel it, just that fact was healing it, somehow, reknitting its skin together and focussing it somehow.
He could feel it all - the natural magic, the life, swirling around the man next to him as it always had before. And Arthur didn’t even know.
He risked a glance over at Arthur and bit his lip. He wanted to tell him, wanted to tell him a thousand things, wanted to see understanding in his face, but this was not the time and this was not the place.
If there ever were a place or a time.
“Are you sure we’re heading in the right direction?” Arthur asked. The wing beats were still reverberating around the green even as they raced past the execution block and the white tower. The problem with the Tower, Merlin thought, was that it was really very well designed for sieges, but the very thing that made it perfect for that - the fact that there was only one entrance and exit available, meant that it was not a good place to be when you were being hunted.
He wasn’t sure, in this new body, whether he could still talk to dragons as he once had, he didn’t know if the power that had once sent Kilgarra flying from Camelot would work on these other dragons from beyond the boundary.
He could see everything now, and hindsight was twenty-twenty. He could see everything that had led him here, to this place, with Arthur (but still not Arthur) by his side. He could see the signs he should have understood, he could still remember the feelings that he had had in the weeks running up to the moment when the worlds had exploded, vivid in his mind. The tingle down his spine was something he had felt a million times before, that build up of magic. He should have known.
There was no time to blame himself though, and, if they got through this, there would be plenty of time for recriminations later, and for dwelling on whether he could have stopped this from happening or not.
Arthur had once asked him whether he thought he could split the world in two, he had been in a pensive mood, by the fire on one of their campaigns. Merlin had admitted that he did not know. There were times, when the magic rushed through him and he could feel it in himself and in the world around him, he wasn’t sure there were any limits to what he could do. There were times when he was scared by how easily it would be for him to break something, a thought at the wrong time, a slip of the tongue and he could break systems and cycles that had been in place for longer than he could remember.
There was another beat of dragon’s wings and he shook off his thoughts. He had no time for dwelling in the past, no matter how exciting it was to only just have discovered it. Arthur had that look, the one that was still exactly the same as the other Arthur, years - centuries - before. It was his ‘I’m not scared look,’ a firm press of the lips, a determined set of the brow and an almost indiscernible fear in the eyes.
Merlin had sometimes wondered what Arthur would be like if he had not been born a prince raised to war, and apparently, he would be just the same. If psychologists could meet him there would be no person more useful in the nature versus nurture debate.
Arthur’s nature was to lead, and he had managed it even here, with a world crumbling around him, a world in which he was supposedly just a cog.
Merlin’s nature, it seemed, was to almost get killed keeping Arthur alive, but that was another thing to think about at a later date.
The dragon had not noticed them yet. Merlin wasn’t sure how or why they were safe, he would have thought that the exultant chord of magic that had rung out when Arthur was crowned and he had become himself again would have been enough to alert a dragon to their presence.
Perhaps, he thought, a little hysterically to himself, they had managed to be found by the only magically deaf dragon in the universe. That would be a stroke of luck.
“We’re never going to get out of here,” Arthur told him, darting a look around the wall they were huddled against towards the huge beast.
“O ye of little faith,” Merlin said. “When have I ever let you down?”
“We’ve only known each other three days,” Arthur pointed out, looking at him a little curiously. Merlin wondered what he saw there. Could he tell that Merlin was different? Did the magic glimmer in his eyes? Did he look at Arthur differently? He must do, it was impossible to look at someone you had seen naked a thousand, a million, times no differently from a complete stranger (albeit an attractive one).
It was impossible to look at someone you knew you loved in the same way as someone you were merely attracted to.
Right... dragon. Honestly, Merlin was probably more use without his memories the way they were distracting him. Here he was, with a magical monster bearing down on them and he was being utterly useless.
He could try to talk to it. He considered, staring into thin air and feeling the rush of air as the dragon beat its wings again, still circling them, constantly circling. But, that would leave him out in the open, right out there, with Arthur, and there was no telling whether or not it would work. The power of the Dragon Lords ran in their blood. But Merlin’s blood was no longer that of Balinor. It was almost an impossibility.
Almost an impossibility, but then you never knew with magic.
But it would still put Arthur in danger and, if there was one thing he knew at this point in time, it was that the world needed Arthur. It needed Arthur to save it.
Centuries had passed and some things never changed.
Merlin made up his mind.
“Arthur,” he said, as serious as he could be. The man - not his friend, not without those memories - turned to him. He looked so serious and so Arthur that Merlin wanted to forget it all, forget the fact that this was not his once upon a time lover, forget that he was standing in the middle of a world that had relegated Arthur and Merlin to the story books. He wanted to reach out. Instead, he smiled and he was grateful that that smile, his huge ‘I’m terrified’ grin, still made Arthur’s eyebrows rise imperceptibly - it meant that even if Arthur never remembered, there was still enough there to keep his hands on this one thing, this one tangible memory. “Do you trust me?” he said instead, repeating his words from inside the tower. It was an important question, but not one he had ever really needed to ask Arthur before. That trust had always been taken for granted.
Arthur was sizing him up and down, and Merlin could still read him like a book, even after years. He did trust Merlin, but he was unsure why and he did not want to say so. In the end he had no choice though.
Arthur nodded, his frustration with Merlin clearly evident.
“Good,” Merlin said. He was beginning to feel the exhilaration again, the buzz that had always come with Arthur and the magic, the buzz he was astonished that he had lived without for so long.
He turned his head away from Arthur and muttered a few words. At least this time round he wouldn’t have to go to all the trouble of learning every single spell again, they sat in his memory eagerly, waiting to jump to his tongue.
Most magic would have attracted the dragon’s attention immediately, but this spell wouldn’t. It was specifically designed to be unnoticeable, to make them unnoticeable.
Merlin felt it settle around him, not magical in the least, but a sort of muffler. He could see the outside world, but the magic of it was blurred.
He grabbed Arthur by the arm and began to run. He could never maintain this shield for very long, it crumbled around him, ruined by the very thing that had called it into existence. His own magic reacted against it. They had to get somewhere where they couldn’t be seen, and quickly.
Arthur didn’t even question him, although Merlin knew that if he looked back the King (and he was King once more, even if he did not know it) would be bracing himself for the blaze of dragon’s fire on their backs.
None came. Merlin thanked whatever powers might be looking out for them that his memories were not confused, and dragged Arthur out of the tower, past the empty raven pens and round the walls. Round they went, onto the road. Tower Hill: that was where they had to get to. They could get back to Monument from there, and it was underground, away from the griffins (not hippogriffs, he knew now), the dragons and the sorcerers, underground in the dark where it was... safe, after a fashion.
There was man standing on the corner, in dark robes, the sort that Merlin remembered only too well. It marked him out as a follower of the darker magics of the old religion, and Merlin had seen so many men clad in those robes on the battlefields as he stood by Arthur’s side.
But the shield held still, though Merlin could feel it beginning to thin. It went quicker than usual, worn out by the dual trouble of containing himself and Arthur.
He could see the entrance to the station, up ahead. Arthur, realising the intent, stopped staring at the man who looked through them unconcerned, and renewed his running towards the steps down.
Merlin wondered if Arthur would still be as easy to fool when it came to magic. He hoped so, because there were going to be a few awkward questions as soon as they were off the street.
He took the steps down two at a time, Arthur passing him by with a speed that was never born of sitting in front of a computer all day. He wondered whether Arthur was actually the person he thought him in this lifetime.
The entrance was not safe, they knew that by now, and they ran further in as quickly as they could, until they couldn’t see the daylight and they had rounded the corner. Then and only then did Merlin allow himself to stop running as he felt the last rags of his tattered cloaking shield fall away. Next to him Arthur was breathing heavily, more from fear and shock than exhaustion though.
“What- what was that?” Arthur asked.
“What was what?” Merlin asked, as innocently as possible. It seemed that he was doomed to repeat his life again and again. He felt nineteen again, the first time round, watching Arthur wake up after yet another miraculous escape and coming up with yet another ridiculous excuse. Branches had always fallen conveniently, Merlin had tripped into someone and sent them flying, a spear was caught in a gust of wind that took it right to the creature’s heart.
But none of that had ever given him a way to explain how a man, who seemed to be there for the specific purpose of seeing things, could look right at you and never see you at all.
“Maybe he was blind?” Merlin suggested. It was the best he could come up with on such short notice. The dragon would have been easy, the dragon might have overlooked them easily, two tiny creatures scurrying through the streets might not even had registered to it, but the man... there was no explaining the man.
“He wasn’t blind..,” Arthur said, staring at him. “He was looking around the street. He was on guard.”
“Then perhaps he has a blind spot?” Merlin said, clutching at nonexistent straws.
“That’s not how blind spots work,” Arthur said, stonily. “What just happened, Merlin?”
“I think...” Merlin said uncertainly, Arthur was unlikely to take well to someone else deciding he was destined to be the once and future (once and now) King. “I think we just got lucky.”
“That was more than lucky,” Arthur said, but, despite giving Merlin a strange, curious look, he did not say anything more. “We need to go west to get back to Monument,” he pointed out. “West bound it is.”
They walked to the platform edge and Arthur hopped down as though he had been doing it all his life. Merlin’s torch was on, though the batteries were failing.
He smirked into the darkness, realising that there was at least one good way to use magic. He whispered a few words and passed his hand over the torch. It glowed brighter than it had done when he had first got it. Arthur turned to look at him.
“Why doesn’t my torch work as well as that?” he asked, before lifting his arms as if to help Merlin down. Merlin didn’t even look at him, just swung himself down on his own, knowing that his feet had narrowly missed kicking Arthur in the head.
The spluttering of indignation was almost enough to make this fun. Arthur’s curses and questions about whether Merlin had ever been examined by a psychiatrist made a chuckle bubble up in his mouth. He was back and Arthur was Arthur even if he wasn’t Arthur and the world was going to be fine, just as long as the two of them stayed alive.
“Morgana will be angry that we didn’t find the sword,” Arthur said huffing out.
“I don’t think she sent us there for the sword,” Merlin said, before he had thought it through. Arthur turned to look at him sharply.
“Then what did she send us there for?” he asked. “To be dragon fodder? Do you think that she’s on the other side?”
“I think we’d be dead by now if she was,” Merlin told him, frowning. Morgana had known that they must go to the tower, no doubt she had seen Arthur’s coronation, it would explain the strange expression on her face when she had told them about it. He stopped, startled, realisation flooding in.
Morgana.
He remembered it all; he remembered every detail of it. He remembered killing her once and her rage when she came back. He remembered the battle when she had died, in his arms again, until Mordred had snatched her away.
He had killed her twice and she was waiting for them.
Merlin without his memories was no threat to her, he was not the man he was and so she had nothing to blame him for. But Merlin now, now he knew, he could remember the fear on her face the first time, the rage and then acceptance the second. He remembered her final words to him. ‘I understand now, I always saw it, but I never understood. Now, I do.” She had not apologised, and neither had he. They had both done what they had deemed right and he had never expected to see her again.
He had been angry when he had sworn her into Arthur’s service beyond her grave. He had wanted to curse her for her betrayal, even though he knew that just as much blame lay at his own door. He had thought death too simple for her and he had bound her fate to Excalibur’s. Redemption he had called it, but it had been more retribution.
And she was back. He could feel ice cold settling in on him and guilt mingling with his fear. She had been terrible, he remembered, in those final years, merciless and she had hated him.
He felt the icy hands of guilt clawing at him, scratching away at the thin scabs that had settled over those wounds. She had been his friend, once upon a time.
And he had betrayed that friendship before she ever had.
“Merlin?” Arthur said, looking at him, face harshly lit by the too bright torch. “What’s up?”
“Nothing. Just...nothing.” He forced himself to take a deep breath. He knew that he was more powerful than she ever could be, but he did not know whether he could kill her a third time, if it came to it. He did not know.
*
“We haven’t found them, my Lady,” came the echoing, neither here nor there, voice of the nymph who stepped forwards. “They have magic on their side, and destiny. They are hidden from us and we cannot search everywhere.”
In her throne, such as it was, the Lady, self-proclaimed empress, rested her head on one hand and looked at the assorted creatures before her thoughtfully.
“We haven’t got the man power,” said the short man, clearly trying to fill in the silence.
“Haven’t we?” she asked, looking at each one of them as though she could see through them. Her gaze came to rest on a man that stood at the end of the line, human in appearance, until he said the words of magic. He was shrouded in ragged, grey robes that fell past his feet and his hands were concealed up his sleeves. As her gaze came to rest on him he inclined his head respectfully. “I know your trade, necromancer,” she said to him, and he looked up.
“What would you have me do?” he asked, his voice had the same crackle as old, brittle paper.
“The dead fill the streets; they lie in every doorway, in every junction. They are everywhere…”
“I have not the power,” he said, a little reluctantly.
“But together we have,” she said. Her lips curled into a vicious smile. “Take as much power as you can from others and give me an army of the dead. I will see with their eyes, I will hear with their ears and I will speak through their mouths.”
“I’m not sure.”
“I have told you what I wish,” she said, in a tone that brooked no arguments. “Now, see it done.”
“Yes, my Lady,” he said, bowing deeply so that the trailing ends of his ragged sleeves brushed the ground.
She smiled to herself again. She would find the Pendragon king and kill him and all who aided him if it was her final act. This world would fall.
*
They were tired when they got back to the base camp, as Will had dubbed it the day before. Their near brush with death, coupled with the long walk back, had winded them and even Arthur had to control deeper breathing than usual.
Merlin was almost amused at how similar Arthur was to the Arthur he had last seen, before being reborn. The mannerisms, the expressions and the voice even, were practically identical. There was a slight edge to the accent that came from centuries of language evolution, but blindfolded Merlin would have known that he was talking to Arthur, still.
It would have been amusing, and he would have enjoyed taunting his acquaintance and erstwhile lover if it hadn’t been that every step took them closer to Morgana and Merlin’s own, personal, day of reckoning.
As soon as they saw the lights of the others’ torches, his steps faltered, but only for a second. He could face down dragons breathing fire and knights in full armour, he could face down Arthur in a rage, but he was terrified of Morgana. He had always had the impression that she could see right through him.
He gritted his teeth and forged onwards.
“Hail the conquering heroes!” Will declared, making Tristan and Gareth smile. It seemed like years since there had been good news. “Where is it then?” he demanded, holding out his hands. “Give it here; I want to hold the weapon that will save the world.”
“It’s not here,” Arthur said abruptly, “we didn’t get it.”
Silence and smiles fell. Merlin felt like he had just kicked a little of puppies. But then he caught Morgana’s eye, where she stood, just outside the circle, and all of the others’ disappointment was forgotten in his own horror and worry.
But he didn’t see the hatred in her eyes that he expected, the hatred that had coloured all her glances at him since after Morgause had brought her back from the cusp of death. He saw a slice of fear there too, as though she was afraid of him.
“So what did you find?” Gawain asked, daring to split the silence.
“A whole lot of nothing,” Arthur said bitterly, “and a dragon on our heels.” There was a moment of shock as eyes darted round, almost expecting to see a dragon burst from the darkness any second. “We lost it,” Arthur quickly added, “though I have no idea how.”
“Yeah,” Merlin agreed, laughing a little nervously, which made Will stare at him curiously. “That is a mystery.”
Arthur didn’t even look directly at him, but Merlin knew him well enough now to know that he was examining every expression that crossed Merlin’s face. The King missed nothing, he never had.
But Merlin ignored him, let Arthur think what he would. Time and Fate would no doubt sort everything out between them, it tended to. He had other things to do, like stare at Will who was again, so Will and yet so not.
If Arthur was still everything he had been, Will was not. He had none of the care and worries of his past counterpart, although he still had the overlarge mouth and the penchant for trouble. He was Will as Merlin remembered him in the beginning, young and carefree and alive, so very alive, and staring at Merlin now like he was concerned.
“What’s up?” Will asked, “Oh god, you did something stupid didn’t you?” The rest of the group turned to look at him, making Merlin flush. Even years of experience had never stopped that particular reflex. He would be old and grey (but not quite as old and grey as tradition made him out to be) and still go bright red to the tips of his ears (and that was another thing, what sadistic power of fate had thought that two lifetimes with these ears would be a good idea?)
“I didn’t do anything,” he protested, except work a little magic his brain added. “I swear.”
“He got us out of there,” Arthur said suddenly. “I have no idea how, but he did.” He clapped Merlin on the back. If Merlin had not been expecting it, the blow would have made him buckle.
“Good man,” Lancelot said, and Merlin allowed him to bask in the presence of one of his best friends again. It was good to be back, strange to have no one know but him (and Morgana) but good.
“Yeah, well. I just waited until the dragon was round the other side of the building and legged it,” he said with a shrug, “nothing important.”
“Must be those freakishly large ears of yours,” Arthur said, unable as ever to give a compliment without an insult on top. “That’s why your directional hearing is so good. You can probably swivel them around and everything.” Merlin glared at him, but it didn’t last for long because Gwen walked over to ask if they wanted a cup of tea and Merlin was swept up in looking at her as well. She and Lancelot were casting small glances at each other in the middle of chaos and this time they had nothing to come between them.
Finally he managed to drag himself away as the group began to discuss the problems they might have finding a weapon, if it existed, and whether they should just head north and leave London.
Arthur was for staying and fighting, as Merlin knew he would be, Gawain, Lancelot and Tristan all stood with him. On the other side were Percy, Jeff and Will, who were definite that they wanted to run for it.
“There are too many,” Will pointed out, “If we go out there we’ll be eaten alive, probably literally. I don’t know about you, but I want to survive. If that means going somewhere else and leaving the fighting to anyone suicidal enough to try then so be it.”
Gwen and Gareth were on the fence, sitting to one side and watching the argument pass them by.
As Merlin watched the debate, steering clear of it himself, he knew which side he would be on and he didn’t want to see Will glare at him again - too many bad memories, he could sense Morgana moving towards him.
When she grasped his arm, he was already turning before her fingers had touched the fabric of his jumper.
“We need to talk,” she said. Another selection of words that filled Merlin with dread.
“I know,” Merlin admitted, nodding.
No one noticed the two of them wander a little further down the corridor; Merlin’s torch their only source of light.
“You remember,” Morgana said, sighing deeply. “About time, although I can’t say I’d been looking forward to this conversation.”
“Before we…” Merlin raised one hand and gestured vaguely in the air, he didn’t have the words for what was to come, argument, discussion, apology, he knew they’d all be in there, but there was no way to string them all together, not really. His head was buzzing with a hundred years (more than a hundred years) of memory. He remembered being old and grey, he remembered watching people he had never met die of war and disease and old age and just downright stupidity.
Merlin shot a glance over his shoulder to where Arthur stood talking to the others, relating tales of their adventures and accepting their concern. Every now and then the blond shot him a glance, curious and suspecting. Merlin felt like he and Morgana were somehow doing something wrong under that gaze. But, along side the feelings of this Merlin, twenty first century Merlin, there were other feelings: amusement and memory of Arthur, young, old, with a sword in his hand, laughing… and other memories, ones that flashed up at the worst of moments and made his cheeks flush.
“Before we go into all of that,” he said, remembering Morgana all of a sudden. She was watching him with a mixture of affection and amusement, not a look he had ever expected to see on her face, not since that day… “Did you know when you sent us to the tower? Did you know what was going to happen?”
“Yes,” she said, completely calm, as ever. “I still know the future, Merlin, though I didn’t know you’d remember. I saw you crown him, that’s all.”
“I did it as a joke,” Merlin said, letting out the bark of a broken laugh. “I told him to kneel, like playing dress up. I didn’t mean it.”
“But you’re a creature of the Old Religion, a priest of it, in many ways,” she said, resting a hand lightly on his arm. “You performed the ceremony, recognised him as your king; that was all that needed to be done. Of course, it would have been more powerful if you had had Excalibur there, but that can’t be helped now. At least you remember.”
“Yes, I remember, but I don’t know…”
“Don’t know what?” Morgana asked.
“Whether I’m still everything I was last time.”
“You’ve got the power; you just needed to remember how to use it.” She frowned slightly, but more a frown of concentration than anything else. It was a look Merlin remembered, the look she used when she was looking at something that didn’t make sense to her. “You’ve already used it once, with that guard Arthur’s blathering on about.”
“Yes, but that’s hardly as major as,” Merlin broke off; a part of his mind had begun to speak up. It was the part that reminded him of the pictures of ‘Merlin’ in story books, venerable, old with a beard down to his ankles. It was telling him that it was ready, he was ready, the power was there, he just had to direct it. It wanted to be used.
He felt the buzz again, the buzz that had once been so familiar, like static charge under his skin, bursting outwards, barely restrained. It wanted to leap and shout, it wanted him to set it free.
The sheer joy and exhilaration it set off inside him made him reel backwards, taking a step back. He heard Arthur falter in his sentence as he did so and marvelled at the fact that he could pick out that momentary pause.
But it didn’t surprise him; he knew more about Arthur than anyone else in the world, he knew more about Arthur than Arthur knew about himself.
“As for the other things,” Morgana said slowly, “I forgave you a long time ago. There were more things going on than just us back then, just like there are more things going on than just us right now. People die, people choose sides. We chose differently, and that was that.”
“I…”
“Did what you had to do,” Morgana said with a shrug. “As did I. I’ve had centuries to think about it all, Merlin. I’ve had years of mulling it over, like you said I would when you set me to help guard Excalibur. Remember.”
Merlin remembered, he remembered summoning Morgana’s shade, when Arthur was away, far away so he would never know, and binding her fate to their own. He remembered telling her that it was her redemption, when really it was his revenge. He wanted her to understand the everlasting, yawning stretch of nothing before her.
“I was wrong,” he said, “I should have let you sleep.”
“And then where would you have been?” she asked, “Do you know how much effort I had to put in to get that unicorn to save you and Will?”
He turned on the spot, to look where Will was telling rude jokes to Gawain and Gareth, determined humour stuck on his face like a grotesque mask.
“Yes, everyone. The whole gang back together,” Morgana agreed, “You’ll get used to it.”
“Gwen and Lancelot and…” Merlin stared, his mouth falling open, even new, hybrid, Merlin couldn’t quite contain his gasp of astonishment. “No, it can’t be.”
“I know,” Morgana said with a light smile, “I was amazed, but I suppose this is legend, after all. It wouldn’t be legend without him.”
“No, I suppose it wouldn’t,” Merlin sighed.
“Anyway,” Morgana said abruptly, “enough reminiscing, we’ll have time for the past when the future is quite done. And right now we need to work out where Excalibur is. You’ve summoned it by making Arthur king again, but we still need to work out how to find it.”
“I think I might- I might be able to sense it,” Merlin said, “I was there when it was made, after all.” He remembered his dream and Freya. He smiled but he did not tell Morgana about it, some conversations were private.
“I was hoping you would say that,” Morgana told him, heaving a huge sigh of relief. “If we had had to rely on Arthur’s amazing powers of observation, we’d be dead for sure.”
“He’s always been a bit oblivious,” Merlin agreed, unable to keep the affection from his voice.
“We’ll need more supplies first,” she pointed out, leaning back against the wall and seeming to collapse in on herself. For a second she looked every year of her age, though Merlin would never be impolite enough to tell her. He still remembered what she could do with a sword in her hand.
“I’ll go,” Merlin said.
“No,” Morgana told him. “Whoever did this, the denizens of the other world, or whoever they are, they will know that Arthur’s been crowned by now. You didn’t do it quietly.”
“Right… sorry.”
“No, it’s fine, but we don’t want them to know about you. We need to keep you out of sight until the time is right.”
“I won’t be able to find Excalibur from down here,” Merlin reminded her.
“We’ll figure that out when we come to it. We just need to work out how to tell Arthur that you can find a sword that you didn’t believe in until this morning.”
“He hasn’t grown any easier about magic, has he?”
“No, not really.”
*
As Merlin knew well, there were many types of magic, his own was such a part of him and the elements around him and it was different from every other kind he had ever found. The dragons came closest to it, but even they were made of something more, something beyond the world.
Druidic magic tried to tap into that core of natural magic, but it was not the same, they found the power, but not the connection or the limitless amounts. Their magic was borrowed and measured carefully. They bent things to their will. Merlin’s will altered the whole world to suit it.
Ordinary sorcerers had made magic, man magic, clumsy attempts to control what was around them using only the power within themselves. It was why you had a calling to sorcery, why some people were better than others; some had more power to draw on.
Then there was a fourth kind of magic, pure magic. He had seen it in the unicorn and it was what Avalon was made from, carved into form. That was what people called the old Religion, it was what sorcerers and druids alive thought that they were tapping into, but few ever did. Nimueh had, Merlin knew. Morgana had come close and Mordred had far surpassed both of them.
But pure magic took its toll. It was powerful and difficult to control; it tore at you as you used it, bent you, and moulded you to it rather than it to you. Pure magic was what Uther had truly feared.
And pure magic was what was at work now, seeping through the streets, up from the earth, down from the air. Pure magic had exploded into the world and now it was changing it.
Without the police or authorities, there had been no clear up after the world had broken. The survivors were more concerned with surviving than with digging the mass graves, and many of them would not have managed both at once.
You learnt, they had found, to ignore the bodies in the streets. You learnt to accept them as part of the scenery. It was a bitter lesson, but it had to be done or else the charred remains and gaping faces would drive you mad.
But they would not be taking it lying down any longer.
The magic pushed into them, into every body, filling them up and lifting them to their feet. One mind connected them all, seeing through every pair of eyes, even those that were lost entirely, hearing through every ear, even those charred beyond recognition into melted black lumps. This was magic of a horrific sort, the kind of magic that Merlin had struggled never to lean towards.
Corpses walked. They lurched, like comedy zombies along the road, jerking like puppets their heads awkwardly turned from side to side, searching for something. In every street it was the same, in every building.
Over seven and a half million people lived in London, the majority of them had died and all of the dead were walking. The numbers were beyond the imagination. Even the biggest budget zombie film had never imagined the sight, although they would have complained about the unrealistic make up and the actors’ ridiculous way of moving.
*
“Mistress,” the small man said, bowing more as a nervous twitch than a sign of respect. “It has been done. The dead walk.”
“Yes,” the woman said, smiling. Her eyes were vacant, staring into nothingness. “I can feel them, I am walking in millions of bodies and I can see through all of their eyes. I shall find the mortal King and whatever magic protects him and I shall destroy it all.”
“Yes, my Mistress,” the short man said, bowing again. “And of Excalibur?”
“What of it?” she asked, turning to look at him, her eyes suddenly focussed.
“Should we move it?” he said, uncertainly, “Surely, now that he has been crowned, it would be a mistake to keep it here.”
“Moving it would just attract his attention. He may not yet realise what it is he is feeling. If we move it, we risk alerting him.”
“Your wisdom knows no bounds,” he said, dropping to his knees and leaning forward to clutch at the bottom of her gown.
“Grovelling doesn’t suit you,” she commented, her eyes losing focus once more. “Leave me. I must concentrate my efforts on finding the usurper and killing him.” She chuckled.
Across the city over seven million voices echoed the sound.
*
Chapter 9: The Call of the Dead
Chapter 8: Memory is a Tricky Thing
If Merlin had been expecting it (in which case it wouldn’t have needed to happen, but it was the thought that counted, after all) then he would have expected it to hit him like a truck, levelling his mind. He would have thought that he might have collapsed or had some sense of agony. Instead it was more like someone had just opened a door in his mind.
Suddenly he wasn’t just Merlin any more, he was Merlin, the wizard, the legend and Merlin the man. He had two identities that were one.
And it didn’t feel strange.
He just felt that it was right and almost as if it was normal.
He had been setting the crown on Arthur’s head when it happened. Merlin had looked down and Arthur had looked up at him and he had thought, quite normally: ‘he looks exactly like he did before’ which had led to thinking about last time and that there had been a last time.
Then the dragon had arrived and the two of them were scrambling and running and Merlin was trying to keep up with the million and one spells that were running through his brain.
He could feel his magic inside his skin and he had been able to feel it all his life, he just hadn’t realised what it was. It was humming now that Arthur was crowned.
Arthur was crowned.
It took him a moment to realise that, even without his memories, he had somehow done exactly what he needed to.
Magic was in everything, even though it had been forced out of the world and into the corners, the edges, over the boundaries, there was still magic running through the world and he could feel it.
He could feel the huge wounds and injuries that the eruption of the other side had caused. He could feel parts of the world screaming at him in pain. But he could feel something else as well: warmth, filtering across the globe as true on these few square metres of ground he stood on as it was everywhere else. Arthur had been crowned and the earth could feel it, just that fact was healing it, somehow, reknitting its skin together and focussing it somehow.
He could feel it all - the natural magic, the life, swirling around the man next to him as it always had before. And Arthur didn’t even know.
He risked a glance over at Arthur and bit his lip. He wanted to tell him, wanted to tell him a thousand things, wanted to see understanding in his face, but this was not the time and this was not the place.
If there ever were a place or a time.
“Are you sure we’re heading in the right direction?” Arthur asked. The wing beats were still reverberating around the green even as they raced past the execution block and the white tower. The problem with the Tower, Merlin thought, was that it was really very well designed for sieges, but the very thing that made it perfect for that - the fact that there was only one entrance and exit available, meant that it was not a good place to be when you were being hunted.
He wasn’t sure, in this new body, whether he could still talk to dragons as he once had, he didn’t know if the power that had once sent Kilgarra flying from Camelot would work on these other dragons from beyond the boundary.
He could see everything now, and hindsight was twenty-twenty. He could see everything that had led him here, to this place, with Arthur (but still not Arthur) by his side. He could see the signs he should have understood, he could still remember the feelings that he had had in the weeks running up to the moment when the worlds had exploded, vivid in his mind. The tingle down his spine was something he had felt a million times before, that build up of magic. He should have known.
There was no time to blame himself though, and, if they got through this, there would be plenty of time for recriminations later, and for dwelling on whether he could have stopped this from happening or not.
Arthur had once asked him whether he thought he could split the world in two, he had been in a pensive mood, by the fire on one of their campaigns. Merlin had admitted that he did not know. There were times, when the magic rushed through him and he could feel it in himself and in the world around him, he wasn’t sure there were any limits to what he could do. There were times when he was scared by how easily it would be for him to break something, a thought at the wrong time, a slip of the tongue and he could break systems and cycles that had been in place for longer than he could remember.
There was another beat of dragon’s wings and he shook off his thoughts. He had no time for dwelling in the past, no matter how exciting it was to only just have discovered it. Arthur had that look, the one that was still exactly the same as the other Arthur, years - centuries - before. It was his ‘I’m not scared look,’ a firm press of the lips, a determined set of the brow and an almost indiscernible fear in the eyes.
Merlin had sometimes wondered what Arthur would be like if he had not been born a prince raised to war, and apparently, he would be just the same. If psychologists could meet him there would be no person more useful in the nature versus nurture debate.
Arthur’s nature was to lead, and he had managed it even here, with a world crumbling around him, a world in which he was supposedly just a cog.
Merlin’s nature, it seemed, was to almost get killed keeping Arthur alive, but that was another thing to think about at a later date.
The dragon had not noticed them yet. Merlin wasn’t sure how or why they were safe, he would have thought that the exultant chord of magic that had rung out when Arthur was crowned and he had become himself again would have been enough to alert a dragon to their presence.
Perhaps, he thought, a little hysterically to himself, they had managed to be found by the only magically deaf dragon in the universe. That would be a stroke of luck.
“We’re never going to get out of here,” Arthur told him, darting a look around the wall they were huddled against towards the huge beast.
“O ye of little faith,” Merlin said. “When have I ever let you down?”
“We’ve only known each other three days,” Arthur pointed out, looking at him a little curiously. Merlin wondered what he saw there. Could he tell that Merlin was different? Did the magic glimmer in his eyes? Did he look at Arthur differently? He must do, it was impossible to look at someone you had seen naked a thousand, a million, times no differently from a complete stranger (albeit an attractive one).
It was impossible to look at someone you knew you loved in the same way as someone you were merely attracted to.
Right... dragon. Honestly, Merlin was probably more use without his memories the way they were distracting him. Here he was, with a magical monster bearing down on them and he was being utterly useless.
He could try to talk to it. He considered, staring into thin air and feeling the rush of air as the dragon beat its wings again, still circling them, constantly circling. But, that would leave him out in the open, right out there, with Arthur, and there was no telling whether or not it would work. The power of the Dragon Lords ran in their blood. But Merlin’s blood was no longer that of Balinor. It was almost an impossibility.
Almost an impossibility, but then you never knew with magic.
But it would still put Arthur in danger and, if there was one thing he knew at this point in time, it was that the world needed Arthur. It needed Arthur to save it.
Centuries had passed and some things never changed.
Merlin made up his mind.
“Arthur,” he said, as serious as he could be. The man - not his friend, not without those memories - turned to him. He looked so serious and so Arthur that Merlin wanted to forget it all, forget the fact that this was not his once upon a time lover, forget that he was standing in the middle of a world that had relegated Arthur and Merlin to the story books. He wanted to reach out. Instead, he smiled and he was grateful that that smile, his huge ‘I’m terrified’ grin, still made Arthur’s eyebrows rise imperceptibly - it meant that even if Arthur never remembered, there was still enough there to keep his hands on this one thing, this one tangible memory. “Do you trust me?” he said instead, repeating his words from inside the tower. It was an important question, but not one he had ever really needed to ask Arthur before. That trust had always been taken for granted.
Arthur was sizing him up and down, and Merlin could still read him like a book, even after years. He did trust Merlin, but he was unsure why and he did not want to say so. In the end he had no choice though.
Arthur nodded, his frustration with Merlin clearly evident.
“Good,” Merlin said. He was beginning to feel the exhilaration again, the buzz that had always come with Arthur and the magic, the buzz he was astonished that he had lived without for so long.
He turned his head away from Arthur and muttered a few words. At least this time round he wouldn’t have to go to all the trouble of learning every single spell again, they sat in his memory eagerly, waiting to jump to his tongue.
Most magic would have attracted the dragon’s attention immediately, but this spell wouldn’t. It was specifically designed to be unnoticeable, to make them unnoticeable.
Merlin felt it settle around him, not magical in the least, but a sort of muffler. He could see the outside world, but the magic of it was blurred.
He grabbed Arthur by the arm and began to run. He could never maintain this shield for very long, it crumbled around him, ruined by the very thing that had called it into existence. His own magic reacted against it. They had to get somewhere where they couldn’t be seen, and quickly.
Arthur didn’t even question him, although Merlin knew that if he looked back the King (and he was King once more, even if he did not know it) would be bracing himself for the blaze of dragon’s fire on their backs.
None came. Merlin thanked whatever powers might be looking out for them that his memories were not confused, and dragged Arthur out of the tower, past the empty raven pens and round the walls. Round they went, onto the road. Tower Hill: that was where they had to get to. They could get back to Monument from there, and it was underground, away from the griffins (not hippogriffs, he knew now), the dragons and the sorcerers, underground in the dark where it was... safe, after a fashion.
There was man standing on the corner, in dark robes, the sort that Merlin remembered only too well. It marked him out as a follower of the darker magics of the old religion, and Merlin had seen so many men clad in those robes on the battlefields as he stood by Arthur’s side.
But the shield held still, though Merlin could feel it beginning to thin. It went quicker than usual, worn out by the dual trouble of containing himself and Arthur.
He could see the entrance to the station, up ahead. Arthur, realising the intent, stopped staring at the man who looked through them unconcerned, and renewed his running towards the steps down.
Merlin wondered if Arthur would still be as easy to fool when it came to magic. He hoped so, because there were going to be a few awkward questions as soon as they were off the street.
He took the steps down two at a time, Arthur passing him by with a speed that was never born of sitting in front of a computer all day. He wondered whether Arthur was actually the person he thought him in this lifetime.
The entrance was not safe, they knew that by now, and they ran further in as quickly as they could, until they couldn’t see the daylight and they had rounded the corner. Then and only then did Merlin allow himself to stop running as he felt the last rags of his tattered cloaking shield fall away. Next to him Arthur was breathing heavily, more from fear and shock than exhaustion though.
“What- what was that?” Arthur asked.
“What was what?” Merlin asked, as innocently as possible. It seemed that he was doomed to repeat his life again and again. He felt nineteen again, the first time round, watching Arthur wake up after yet another miraculous escape and coming up with yet another ridiculous excuse. Branches had always fallen conveniently, Merlin had tripped into someone and sent them flying, a spear was caught in a gust of wind that took it right to the creature’s heart.
But none of that had ever given him a way to explain how a man, who seemed to be there for the specific purpose of seeing things, could look right at you and never see you at all.
“Maybe he was blind?” Merlin suggested. It was the best he could come up with on such short notice. The dragon would have been easy, the dragon might have overlooked them easily, two tiny creatures scurrying through the streets might not even had registered to it, but the man... there was no explaining the man.
“He wasn’t blind..,” Arthur said, staring at him. “He was looking around the street. He was on guard.”
“Then perhaps he has a blind spot?” Merlin said, clutching at nonexistent straws.
“That’s not how blind spots work,” Arthur said, stonily. “What just happened, Merlin?”
“I think...” Merlin said uncertainly, Arthur was unlikely to take well to someone else deciding he was destined to be the once and future (once and now) King. “I think we just got lucky.”
“That was more than lucky,” Arthur said, but, despite giving Merlin a strange, curious look, he did not say anything more. “We need to go west to get back to Monument,” he pointed out. “West bound it is.”
They walked to the platform edge and Arthur hopped down as though he had been doing it all his life. Merlin’s torch was on, though the batteries were failing.
He smirked into the darkness, realising that there was at least one good way to use magic. He whispered a few words and passed his hand over the torch. It glowed brighter than it had done when he had first got it. Arthur turned to look at him.
“Why doesn’t my torch work as well as that?” he asked, before lifting his arms as if to help Merlin down. Merlin didn’t even look at him, just swung himself down on his own, knowing that his feet had narrowly missed kicking Arthur in the head.
The spluttering of indignation was almost enough to make this fun. Arthur’s curses and questions about whether Merlin had ever been examined by a psychiatrist made a chuckle bubble up in his mouth. He was back and Arthur was Arthur even if he wasn’t Arthur and the world was going to be fine, just as long as the two of them stayed alive.
“Morgana will be angry that we didn’t find the sword,” Arthur said huffing out.
“I don’t think she sent us there for the sword,” Merlin said, before he had thought it through. Arthur turned to look at him sharply.
“Then what did she send us there for?” he asked. “To be dragon fodder? Do you think that she’s on the other side?”
“I think we’d be dead by now if she was,” Merlin told him, frowning. Morgana had known that they must go to the tower, no doubt she had seen Arthur’s coronation, it would explain the strange expression on her face when she had told them about it. He stopped, startled, realisation flooding in.
Morgana.
He remembered it all; he remembered every detail of it. He remembered killing her once and her rage when she came back. He remembered the battle when she had died, in his arms again, until Mordred had snatched her away.
He had killed her twice and she was waiting for them.
Merlin without his memories was no threat to her, he was not the man he was and so she had nothing to blame him for. But Merlin now, now he knew, he could remember the fear on her face the first time, the rage and then acceptance the second. He remembered her final words to him. ‘I understand now, I always saw it, but I never understood. Now, I do.” She had not apologised, and neither had he. They had both done what they had deemed right and he had never expected to see her again.
He had been angry when he had sworn her into Arthur’s service beyond her grave. He had wanted to curse her for her betrayal, even though he knew that just as much blame lay at his own door. He had thought death too simple for her and he had bound her fate to Excalibur’s. Redemption he had called it, but it had been more retribution.
And she was back. He could feel ice cold settling in on him and guilt mingling with his fear. She had been terrible, he remembered, in those final years, merciless and she had hated him.
He felt the icy hands of guilt clawing at him, scratching away at the thin scabs that had settled over those wounds. She had been his friend, once upon a time.
And he had betrayed that friendship before she ever had.
“Merlin?” Arthur said, looking at him, face harshly lit by the too bright torch. “What’s up?”
“Nothing. Just...nothing.” He forced himself to take a deep breath. He knew that he was more powerful than she ever could be, but he did not know whether he could kill her a third time, if it came to it. He did not know.
*
“We haven’t found them, my Lady,” came the echoing, neither here nor there, voice of the nymph who stepped forwards. “They have magic on their side, and destiny. They are hidden from us and we cannot search everywhere.”
In her throne, such as it was, the Lady, self-proclaimed empress, rested her head on one hand and looked at the assorted creatures before her thoughtfully.
“We haven’t got the man power,” said the short man, clearly trying to fill in the silence.
“Haven’t we?” she asked, looking at each one of them as though she could see through them. Her gaze came to rest on a man that stood at the end of the line, human in appearance, until he said the words of magic. He was shrouded in ragged, grey robes that fell past his feet and his hands were concealed up his sleeves. As her gaze came to rest on him he inclined his head respectfully. “I know your trade, necromancer,” she said to him, and he looked up.
“What would you have me do?” he asked, his voice had the same crackle as old, brittle paper.
“The dead fill the streets; they lie in every doorway, in every junction. They are everywhere…”
“I have not the power,” he said, a little reluctantly.
“But together we have,” she said. Her lips curled into a vicious smile. “Take as much power as you can from others and give me an army of the dead. I will see with their eyes, I will hear with their ears and I will speak through their mouths.”
“I’m not sure.”
“I have told you what I wish,” she said, in a tone that brooked no arguments. “Now, see it done.”
“Yes, my Lady,” he said, bowing deeply so that the trailing ends of his ragged sleeves brushed the ground.
She smiled to herself again. She would find the Pendragon king and kill him and all who aided him if it was her final act. This world would fall.
*
They were tired when they got back to the base camp, as Will had dubbed it the day before. Their near brush with death, coupled with the long walk back, had winded them and even Arthur had to control deeper breathing than usual.
Merlin was almost amused at how similar Arthur was to the Arthur he had last seen, before being reborn. The mannerisms, the expressions and the voice even, were practically identical. There was a slight edge to the accent that came from centuries of language evolution, but blindfolded Merlin would have known that he was talking to Arthur, still.
It would have been amusing, and he would have enjoyed taunting his acquaintance and erstwhile lover if it hadn’t been that every step took them closer to Morgana and Merlin’s own, personal, day of reckoning.
As soon as they saw the lights of the others’ torches, his steps faltered, but only for a second. He could face down dragons breathing fire and knights in full armour, he could face down Arthur in a rage, but he was terrified of Morgana. He had always had the impression that she could see right through him.
He gritted his teeth and forged onwards.
“Hail the conquering heroes!” Will declared, making Tristan and Gareth smile. It seemed like years since there had been good news. “Where is it then?” he demanded, holding out his hands. “Give it here; I want to hold the weapon that will save the world.”
“It’s not here,” Arthur said abruptly, “we didn’t get it.”
Silence and smiles fell. Merlin felt like he had just kicked a little of puppies. But then he caught Morgana’s eye, where she stood, just outside the circle, and all of the others’ disappointment was forgotten in his own horror and worry.
But he didn’t see the hatred in her eyes that he expected, the hatred that had coloured all her glances at him since after Morgause had brought her back from the cusp of death. He saw a slice of fear there too, as though she was afraid of him.
“So what did you find?” Gawain asked, daring to split the silence.
“A whole lot of nothing,” Arthur said bitterly, “and a dragon on our heels.” There was a moment of shock as eyes darted round, almost expecting to see a dragon burst from the darkness any second. “We lost it,” Arthur quickly added, “though I have no idea how.”
“Yeah,” Merlin agreed, laughing a little nervously, which made Will stare at him curiously. “That is a mystery.”
Arthur didn’t even look directly at him, but Merlin knew him well enough now to know that he was examining every expression that crossed Merlin’s face. The King missed nothing, he never had.
But Merlin ignored him, let Arthur think what he would. Time and Fate would no doubt sort everything out between them, it tended to. He had other things to do, like stare at Will who was again, so Will and yet so not.
If Arthur was still everything he had been, Will was not. He had none of the care and worries of his past counterpart, although he still had the overlarge mouth and the penchant for trouble. He was Will as Merlin remembered him in the beginning, young and carefree and alive, so very alive, and staring at Merlin now like he was concerned.
“What’s up?” Will asked, “Oh god, you did something stupid didn’t you?” The rest of the group turned to look at him, making Merlin flush. Even years of experience had never stopped that particular reflex. He would be old and grey (but not quite as old and grey as tradition made him out to be) and still go bright red to the tips of his ears (and that was another thing, what sadistic power of fate had thought that two lifetimes with these ears would be a good idea?)
“I didn’t do anything,” he protested, except work a little magic his brain added. “I swear.”
“He got us out of there,” Arthur said suddenly. “I have no idea how, but he did.” He clapped Merlin on the back. If Merlin had not been expecting it, the blow would have made him buckle.
“Good man,” Lancelot said, and Merlin allowed him to bask in the presence of one of his best friends again. It was good to be back, strange to have no one know but him (and Morgana) but good.
“Yeah, well. I just waited until the dragon was round the other side of the building and legged it,” he said with a shrug, “nothing important.”
“Must be those freakishly large ears of yours,” Arthur said, unable as ever to give a compliment without an insult on top. “That’s why your directional hearing is so good. You can probably swivel them around and everything.” Merlin glared at him, but it didn’t last for long because Gwen walked over to ask if they wanted a cup of tea and Merlin was swept up in looking at her as well. She and Lancelot were casting small glances at each other in the middle of chaos and this time they had nothing to come between them.
Finally he managed to drag himself away as the group began to discuss the problems they might have finding a weapon, if it existed, and whether they should just head north and leave London.
Arthur was for staying and fighting, as Merlin knew he would be, Gawain, Lancelot and Tristan all stood with him. On the other side were Percy, Jeff and Will, who were definite that they wanted to run for it.
“There are too many,” Will pointed out, “If we go out there we’ll be eaten alive, probably literally. I don’t know about you, but I want to survive. If that means going somewhere else and leaving the fighting to anyone suicidal enough to try then so be it.”
Gwen and Gareth were on the fence, sitting to one side and watching the argument pass them by.
As Merlin watched the debate, steering clear of it himself, he knew which side he would be on and he didn’t want to see Will glare at him again - too many bad memories, he could sense Morgana moving towards him.
When she grasped his arm, he was already turning before her fingers had touched the fabric of his jumper.
“We need to talk,” she said. Another selection of words that filled Merlin with dread.
“I know,” Merlin admitted, nodding.
No one noticed the two of them wander a little further down the corridor; Merlin’s torch their only source of light.
“You remember,” Morgana said, sighing deeply. “About time, although I can’t say I’d been looking forward to this conversation.”
“Before we…” Merlin raised one hand and gestured vaguely in the air, he didn’t have the words for what was to come, argument, discussion, apology, he knew they’d all be in there, but there was no way to string them all together, not really. His head was buzzing with a hundred years (more than a hundred years) of memory. He remembered being old and grey, he remembered watching people he had never met die of war and disease and old age and just downright stupidity.
Merlin shot a glance over his shoulder to where Arthur stood talking to the others, relating tales of their adventures and accepting their concern. Every now and then the blond shot him a glance, curious and suspecting. Merlin felt like he and Morgana were somehow doing something wrong under that gaze. But, along side the feelings of this Merlin, twenty first century Merlin, there were other feelings: amusement and memory of Arthur, young, old, with a sword in his hand, laughing… and other memories, ones that flashed up at the worst of moments and made his cheeks flush.
“Before we go into all of that,” he said, remembering Morgana all of a sudden. She was watching him with a mixture of affection and amusement, not a look he had ever expected to see on her face, not since that day… “Did you know when you sent us to the tower? Did you know what was going to happen?”
“Yes,” she said, completely calm, as ever. “I still know the future, Merlin, though I didn’t know you’d remember. I saw you crown him, that’s all.”
“I did it as a joke,” Merlin said, letting out the bark of a broken laugh. “I told him to kneel, like playing dress up. I didn’t mean it.”
“But you’re a creature of the Old Religion, a priest of it, in many ways,” she said, resting a hand lightly on his arm. “You performed the ceremony, recognised him as your king; that was all that needed to be done. Of course, it would have been more powerful if you had had Excalibur there, but that can’t be helped now. At least you remember.”
“Yes, I remember, but I don’t know…”
“Don’t know what?” Morgana asked.
“Whether I’m still everything I was last time.”
“You’ve got the power; you just needed to remember how to use it.” She frowned slightly, but more a frown of concentration than anything else. It was a look Merlin remembered, the look she used when she was looking at something that didn’t make sense to her. “You’ve already used it once, with that guard Arthur’s blathering on about.”
“Yes, but that’s hardly as major as,” Merlin broke off; a part of his mind had begun to speak up. It was the part that reminded him of the pictures of ‘Merlin’ in story books, venerable, old with a beard down to his ankles. It was telling him that it was ready, he was ready, the power was there, he just had to direct it. It wanted to be used.
He felt the buzz again, the buzz that had once been so familiar, like static charge under his skin, bursting outwards, barely restrained. It wanted to leap and shout, it wanted him to set it free.
The sheer joy and exhilaration it set off inside him made him reel backwards, taking a step back. He heard Arthur falter in his sentence as he did so and marvelled at the fact that he could pick out that momentary pause.
But it didn’t surprise him; he knew more about Arthur than anyone else in the world, he knew more about Arthur than Arthur knew about himself.
“As for the other things,” Morgana said slowly, “I forgave you a long time ago. There were more things going on than just us back then, just like there are more things going on than just us right now. People die, people choose sides. We chose differently, and that was that.”
“I…”
“Did what you had to do,” Morgana said with a shrug. “As did I. I’ve had centuries to think about it all, Merlin. I’ve had years of mulling it over, like you said I would when you set me to help guard Excalibur. Remember.”
Merlin remembered, he remembered summoning Morgana’s shade, when Arthur was away, far away so he would never know, and binding her fate to their own. He remembered telling her that it was her redemption, when really it was his revenge. He wanted her to understand the everlasting, yawning stretch of nothing before her.
“I was wrong,” he said, “I should have let you sleep.”
“And then where would you have been?” she asked, “Do you know how much effort I had to put in to get that unicorn to save you and Will?”
He turned on the spot, to look where Will was telling rude jokes to Gawain and Gareth, determined humour stuck on his face like a grotesque mask.
“Yes, everyone. The whole gang back together,” Morgana agreed, “You’ll get used to it.”
“Gwen and Lancelot and…” Merlin stared, his mouth falling open, even new, hybrid, Merlin couldn’t quite contain his gasp of astonishment. “No, it can’t be.”
“I know,” Morgana said with a light smile, “I was amazed, but I suppose this is legend, after all. It wouldn’t be legend without him.”
“No, I suppose it wouldn’t,” Merlin sighed.
“Anyway,” Morgana said abruptly, “enough reminiscing, we’ll have time for the past when the future is quite done. And right now we need to work out where Excalibur is. You’ve summoned it by making Arthur king again, but we still need to work out how to find it.”
“I think I might- I might be able to sense it,” Merlin said, “I was there when it was made, after all.” He remembered his dream and Freya. He smiled but he did not tell Morgana about it, some conversations were private.
“I was hoping you would say that,” Morgana told him, heaving a huge sigh of relief. “If we had had to rely on Arthur’s amazing powers of observation, we’d be dead for sure.”
“He’s always been a bit oblivious,” Merlin agreed, unable to keep the affection from his voice.
“We’ll need more supplies first,” she pointed out, leaning back against the wall and seeming to collapse in on herself. For a second she looked every year of her age, though Merlin would never be impolite enough to tell her. He still remembered what she could do with a sword in her hand.
“I’ll go,” Merlin said.
“No,” Morgana told him. “Whoever did this, the denizens of the other world, or whoever they are, they will know that Arthur’s been crowned by now. You didn’t do it quietly.”
“Right… sorry.”
“No, it’s fine, but we don’t want them to know about you. We need to keep you out of sight until the time is right.”
“I won’t be able to find Excalibur from down here,” Merlin reminded her.
“We’ll figure that out when we come to it. We just need to work out how to tell Arthur that you can find a sword that you didn’t believe in until this morning.”
“He hasn’t grown any easier about magic, has he?”
“No, not really.”
*
As Merlin knew well, there were many types of magic, his own was such a part of him and the elements around him and it was different from every other kind he had ever found. The dragons came closest to it, but even they were made of something more, something beyond the world.
Druidic magic tried to tap into that core of natural magic, but it was not the same, they found the power, but not the connection or the limitless amounts. Their magic was borrowed and measured carefully. They bent things to their will. Merlin’s will altered the whole world to suit it.
Ordinary sorcerers had made magic, man magic, clumsy attempts to control what was around them using only the power within themselves. It was why you had a calling to sorcery, why some people were better than others; some had more power to draw on.
Then there was a fourth kind of magic, pure magic. He had seen it in the unicorn and it was what Avalon was made from, carved into form. That was what people called the old Religion, it was what sorcerers and druids alive thought that they were tapping into, but few ever did. Nimueh had, Merlin knew. Morgana had come close and Mordred had far surpassed both of them.
But pure magic took its toll. It was powerful and difficult to control; it tore at you as you used it, bent you, and moulded you to it rather than it to you. Pure magic was what Uther had truly feared.
And pure magic was what was at work now, seeping through the streets, up from the earth, down from the air. Pure magic had exploded into the world and now it was changing it.
Without the police or authorities, there had been no clear up after the world had broken. The survivors were more concerned with surviving than with digging the mass graves, and many of them would not have managed both at once.
You learnt, they had found, to ignore the bodies in the streets. You learnt to accept them as part of the scenery. It was a bitter lesson, but it had to be done or else the charred remains and gaping faces would drive you mad.
But they would not be taking it lying down any longer.
The magic pushed into them, into every body, filling them up and lifting them to their feet. One mind connected them all, seeing through every pair of eyes, even those that were lost entirely, hearing through every ear, even those charred beyond recognition into melted black lumps. This was magic of a horrific sort, the kind of magic that Merlin had struggled never to lean towards.
Corpses walked. They lurched, like comedy zombies along the road, jerking like puppets their heads awkwardly turned from side to side, searching for something. In every street it was the same, in every building.
Over seven and a half million people lived in London, the majority of them had died and all of the dead were walking. The numbers were beyond the imagination. Even the biggest budget zombie film had never imagined the sight, although they would have complained about the unrealistic make up and the actors’ ridiculous way of moving.
*
“Mistress,” the small man said, bowing more as a nervous twitch than a sign of respect. “It has been done. The dead walk.”
“Yes,” the woman said, smiling. Her eyes were vacant, staring into nothingness. “I can feel them, I am walking in millions of bodies and I can see through all of their eyes. I shall find the mortal King and whatever magic protects him and I shall destroy it all.”
“Yes, my Mistress,” the short man said, bowing again. “And of Excalibur?”
“What of it?” she asked, turning to look at him, her eyes suddenly focussed.
“Should we move it?” he said, uncertainly, “Surely, now that he has been crowned, it would be a mistake to keep it here.”
“Moving it would just attract his attention. He may not yet realise what it is he is feeling. If we move it, we risk alerting him.”
“Your wisdom knows no bounds,” he said, dropping to his knees and leaning forward to clutch at the bottom of her gown.
“Grovelling doesn’t suit you,” she commented, her eyes losing focus once more. “Leave me. I must concentrate my efforts on finding the usurper and killing him.” She chuckled.
Across the city over seven million voices echoed the sound.
*
Chapter 9: The Call of the Dead